Vascular occlusion clamps are readily commercially available. Such clamps are used for temporary vascular occlusion during surgical procedures and are generally disposable after use, thus avoiding problems associated with repeated usage, sterilization, storage, and record keeping necessarily connected therewith. The clamps can also be used for other types of surgical grasping and clamping of tissue, veins, arteries, etc. These clamps are generally made of a radiopaque acetal homopolymer or nylon. They are of small size, less than about 5 cm in length, and vary in clamping strength with size from about 20 gms to about 175 gms of clamping pressure. Vascular occlusion clamps are available, inter alia, from the assignee of this invention, Scanlan International, Inc. and are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. D 268,523 and D 276,461, which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties.
Because these vascluar occlusion clamps can be relatively small, it can be advantageous to have visual indicia of the location of the clamp other than the clamp itself, particularly because the view of the clamp itself may be obstructed in the surgical field. Further, it can be advantageous to provide a mechanism other than the clamp itself by which the clamp may be maneuvered in, and retrieved from, the surgical field. It can also be beneficial if such a maneuvering, retrieval, and visual identification mechanism is radiopaque. This provides additional x-ray contrast area to mark the location of the clamp or, should the mechanism become separated from the clamp, mark the location of the mechanism. For these reasons, some surgical sponges manufactured of cotton may include a radiopaque string wrapped within the sponge.
Thus, it is desirable to provide some method for easily, safely and readily identifying surgical instruments, such as vascular occlusion clamps within a surgical field. It is further desirable to provide some method to retrieve and maneuver the clamp during a surgical procedure.